This invention relates to pillows for the neck and upper spine, used for traveling and sleeping. In particular to a pillow that is reversible between a neck supporting horseshoe configuration and a rectangular outline common pillow where in each configuration a continuous outer surface of the pillowcase makes that configuration of the reversible pillow nearly indistinguishable from pillows of similar configurations which are not convertibly reversible.
Travelers who are forced to sit for a long time in an upright posture have long struggled with obtaining adequate neck support so that back or neck problems do not appear or become worse as a result of their having to sit for a long time in planes, cars, or trains. As a result of this problem, a neck pillow 20 as shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, has been developed. It is a horseshoe-shaped collar which, quite often, is an inflatable structure and, more recently, has been filled with foam, feathers, or organic granular or bark-type materials. Side and top views of the conventional neck pillow are shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. FIG. 1 shows the use of a neck pillow by the traveler sitting in an upright seat. The pillow, ideally, fits around the neck and sits on the shoulders and supports the back of the neck to prevent the head from tilting sharply to one side, so that any hinging of the neck (such as might occur when a person nods off to sleep) is minimized. However, unless an inflatable pillow (which is generally considered by most travelers to be not very useful) is used, once the traveling time is over, a horseshoe-shaped travel pillow becomes a weight to be carried around and stored until the next usage.
The use of such a pillow for sleeping on a horizontal surface, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, is contrary to popular experience where a plain, rectangular-type pillow 22, a perspective view of which is shown in FIG. 6 (a side view of which is shown in FIG. 7) supports the head of a sleeping person 24 as shown in FIG. 5. The conventional-type pillow 22, as shown in FIG. 6, has all the disadvantages of a standard airline-type pillow, namely, that it does not remain propped on one""s shoulders but slides down one""s back every time one leans forward. It is not an acceptable alternative for the most demanding travelers.
Travelers had been faced with the issue of whether they want to take along a pillow which is good for their neck and back and then have to carry it around and store it within their luggage until the next seated usage. Travelers were interested in having a pillow which they may use both for traveling and also in other instances, for example which could be used in a normal horizontal sleep configuration that provides them better neck support and a more consistent night""s rest lying horizontally, and which also maintains the advantages of a travel-type neck pillow when they are traveling. Then in 2000 U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,577 issued, and is incorporated herein by reference, it discloses an invention of one of the inventors of the present application, a transformable pillow that utilizes a particular volumetric pillow case configuration and a selected amount of flowable fill material to provide two configurations, each configuration closed by a fastening a flap of unfilled pillow case material on or to a side surface of the filled portion of the pillow case. The present invention provides an improvement over the side flap arrangement of that earlier design in that the side flap of the earlier design was subject to the holding power of the fasteners used and their resistance to outside rubbing and normal usage forces to maintain the desired configurations. External buttons and snaps would become loose and could break, which created a nuisance to the user during the use and or transport of the transformable pillow. The present invention implements a solution which substantially eliminates the need for a variety of fasteners to maintain their holding power and eliminates the presence of fasteners on the side surface of the pillow where they are likely to come in contact with a pillow user""s face which thereby provides an elegant solution which when implemented is almost indistinguishable from pillows in either of the two configurations (travel and rectangular; or between one preferred shape and another, such as a circular pillow and a square pillow) between which a configuration according to the invention is transformable.
The present invention provides a transformable travel pillow which utilizes granular or flowable material within a pillowcase which is configured to be folded in one of two configurations so that, in one configuration, the pillow fill is relatively firm and is contained within a collar end of a pillowcase opposite a plain end of a pillowcase. The pillowcase at the collar end includes two tubular collar sections extending approximately in the same direction with a saddle section, sized to receive the neck of a person, between the two tubular collar sections. This configuration of the invention is like the horseshoe shape of the neck pillow previously described.
The relationship of the flowable or granular fill material within the pillowcase is such that when the granular fill material is positioned to substantially fill a collar end of the pillowcase, the two tubular collar sections of the pillowcase including a saddle section, are substantially full of granular material, while granular fill material is substantially absent from the plain end of the pillowcase, such that a plain end flap of the pillowcase can be at least partially everted and positioned within the collar end of the pillowcase and the two sides of a reversible fastening mechanism system joined to capture and hold the at least partially everted plain end flap of the pillowcase and the granular fill material in the collar end of the pillowcase.
Alternately, when the granular fill material is positioned to substantially fill a plain end of the pillowcase, the plain end of the pillowcase is substantially full of granular material, while granular fill material is substantially absent from two tubular collar sections at a collar end of the pillowcase, such that a collar end flap including the collar sections of the pillowcase can be at least partially everted and positioned within the plain end of the pillowcase and the two sides of a reversible fastening mechanism system joined to capture and hold the at least partially everted collar end flap of the pillowcase and the granular fill material in the plain end of the pillowcase.
When either the plain end or the collar end of the pillowcase is partially everted and folded into and beyond the then formed opening between the sides of the reversible fastening mechanism of the pillowcase, the two sides of the pillowcase containing the reversible fastening mechanism can be a reversible zipper or other reversibly connectable a fastener system such as buttons and buttonholes, Velcro-type hook and loop array system, or a projections-projection receiving snaps which maintain the configuration of the pillow in either a neck collar-type arrangement or a plain approximately rectangular arrangement.
Similarly the collar end and plain end described already can be equated to first and second geometric configurations between which a specially configured pillowcase may be transformed, for example a circular pillow and a square pillow.
The fill material is, preferably, granular-type buckwheat hulls, but may be any of the flowable, minimally compressible pillow-fill materials known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.